


run

by nereid



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Minor Finn Collins/Raven Reyes, if you squint real hard, mentions of Raven's mother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 01:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4121847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nereid/pseuds/nereid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven's always been a good mechanic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/gifts).



 

Raven likes to think of herself as someone practical, someone knowledgeable. Someone who knows the way to do the thing, and can do the thing blindfolded with one hand. She's nine years old and in an Earth skills class when Mrs Fawl shows them a screwdriver and how to use it. Her mother trips over something invisible and this scares Raven and that night a loose screw falls out of the chair that ends up being a casualty of her mother's fall, so the following day, Raven sneaks one of their practice screw drivers out of their classroom and while her mother's sleeping, as unaware of the world around her as ever, Raven sits down on the floor cross-legged and gets her screwdriver out of her bag. Her little hands hurt a bit but she tightens the screw as much as she can, no sound anywhere in this dead night. Her hands don't shake and the screw is not loose anymore and her mother won't fall now, probably. Maybe. Or at least Raven's done what she can to make her not fall. So, knowledge, Raven sees clearly maybe for the first time now, knowledge is good. This is all easy for Raven.

 

 

Raven's always been a good mechanic.

 

 

Raven likes many things about being a mechanic (the youngest Zero G mechanic in the last 52 years on the Ark, thank you very much). Raven likes the skill it takes to finish a task, whatever it may be. Skill that she has, a skill that she owns; her mother takes away many things from her, but she can't have this. Raven could build a bomb probably, hovering in Zero G, with her right side left and down side up, with her mother leaving, with Finn looking at her, proud and maybe teasing her anyway. Raven's that good.

 

 

Raven likes the work it requires. She can't cheat, she can't lie her way to it, can't sleep her way to it, can't buy it. It's knowledge, it's work, it's wanting herself to be better and wanting her body to be better. It's getting up to exercise to the sound of her mother snoring and the tension in her muscles soon being replaced by the soreness of her muscles, and Raven learns that soreness always feels better. Raven learns coping mechanism are there for a reason - to help cope, and she uses each one she finds.

 

 

Raven runs for miles on a space station too small for both her and her running and she runs as fast as she can.

 

 

Raven's a mechanic, and all good mechanics know there are happy endings, but that you have to work for them. And Raven does. Raven sneaks food when her mother trades hers away, Raven gets up at five, Raven cries and wipes her tears herself. They call her the youngest Zero G mechanic on the Ark in the last 52 years, and that's a truth that Raven made so, all by herself. And if she also aligns all the parts of herself just right under the only boy who's ever been family, then she's following the happy ending instructions book to a T. She's working to a happy ending, she knows, because she knows the parts it takes to make an ending happy, and Raven's a good mechanic, damn it. She is.

 

 

Raven's the youngest Zero G mechanic on the Ark in the last 52 years, and Zero is exactly how useful that feels when her mother looks at her like _that_. Raven sighs, doesn't say anything as she wipes sweat or maybe tears from her face.

 

 

She turns the screw tighter.

 


End file.
